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From the Chairman of the
Editorial Board
Iain Robertson
doesn’t have to be about culture-clashes
of course. In the magazine we try to
include anything of broadly
Scandinavian interest, including things
which may lie slightly outside readers’
normal range of concerns. In this issue
an article by Peter Wright touches on
the world of international chess, while
Peter Addyman keeps us up to date on
the latest in Anglo-Scandinavian
archaeology. There is, we hope,
something for everyone.
In conclusion may we on the
Editorial Board take this opportunity of
wishing everyone a wonderful
Christmas and a prosperous 2014.

As I write Christmas is approaching
with its usual round of carol services,
Lucia festivals and Christmas food.
Here in York we’re planning a largescale Lucia festival in the Minster.
There are already celebrations in
St. Paul’s and Birmingham cathedrals,
so it would seem that the light is
spreading outwards from Scandinavia!
Christmas is, of course, a special
time of year for food, and at the risk of
appearing to be obsessed with our
stomachs, we’re including in this issue
descriptions of seasonal Scandinavian
dishes, while the ever-popular Anna
Sophie’s Kitchen focuses on liquid
refreshment.
Most of us who have lived abroad
have experienced culture-clashes,
sometimes amusing, sometimes
embarrassing. In this issue we’re
continuing our series featuring these
differences. We’d love to hear your
experiences too, so please consider
writing us an article – around 900
words – which you can send to
iainro@tiscali.co.uk. Your article

Announcement

We have just learned with great sadness
of the death of Dagmar Dahl Cockitt on
27 November 2013.
Dagmar worked tirelessly for the
Midlands Scandinavians, Coscan and the
Trust Fund for many years and will be
sorely missed.

2

Message
from the
President

other within the wider European
framework. The so-called NB8 – NB
representing Nordic/Baltic – hold
regular Ministerial meetings, and the
eight embassies in London have
surprisingly frequent contacts. And just
as there are large numbers of UK
residents with one of the five Nordic
nationalities, so too are there many with
Baltic state nationality; 200,000
Lithuanians, according to the
Lithuanian ambassador in London,
though far fewer Latvians and
Estonians. Why shouldn’t CoScan
move with the times, embrace our
Baltic brothers and sisters, and
incidentally swell our coffers (there are
lots of Anglo-Lithuanian societies and
no doubt -Latvian and -Estonian too)?
One reason why not, apart from sheer
inertia, is the lack of linguistic and
cultural overlap. Whereas nationals of
the five Nordic countries can generally
communicate comfortably among each
other without resorting to English, none
of the three Baltic languages is
accessible to most of us. The NB8 may
have much in common, politically and
economically, but that isn’t really
relevant to most of what goes on in
CoScan. And one shouldn’t discount
the inertia factor; bringing three new
countries’ nationals and societies on
board would involve quite a lot of work
by CoScan’s dedicated workers (not
enough of them!) as well as
fundamental change to our constitution.
What do you think? We need to
know – the answer isn’t obvious.
Please tell me or the Chairman, or any
committee member, if you have views
of any kind. All correspondence
welcomed, as always.

Mark Elliott

In my message for this magazine’s last
issue, shortly after our Tallinn
conference, I mentioned briefly the case
for expanding CoScan’s horizons to
include the three Baltic countries.
During the last half-year the committee
has looked briefly at this idea, but we
are still far from any sort of agreement.
As I fully recognise, there are
arguments both for and against.
Perhaps this is a good moment to touch
on some of them.
There have for many years been a
few advocates in CoScan of outreach to
the three Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia
and Lithuania. Estonia, so close to
Finland and with some ethnic and
linguistic links, was perhaps the clearest
candidate, and the 2003 Helsinki
conference included a day-trip to
Tallinn. But historically both Latvia
and Lithuania had been within the
Scandinavian sphere of interest,
particularly that of Sweden. At one
time in the 17th century Riga was
apparently the largest city in the
Swedish Empire.
Having a Baltic seaboard and the odd
historical encounter with Swedes does
not prove Scandinavian-ness – CoScan
has no ambition to embrace Germany or
Poland. But in the 21st century the five
Nordic states and the three Baltic states
are building institutional links with each
3

Chairman’s message
Eva Robards

matters to be aired? Should there be a
reward for the best letter?
The website is being re-developed
and we hope to have a membership
oriented homepage in not too long.
Facebook is also important to widen
the CoScan appeal and will be used to
reach as many of you as possible.
Meeting up in person is, however,
unbeatable. One way to meet other
CoScan-members is to come to our
AGMs. Not an exciting prospect?
Wrong! Don’t miss next year in
Edinburgh. The Norwegian Scottish
Association is organising a tempting
event (see page 12). We do hope to see
you there.
Recruiting new member
organisations is going well. Over the
last 18 months we have eight new
organisations signed up, seven of these
in 2013. Since the last Magazine we
have four new members: the University
of Sheffield Centre for Nordic Studies,
the Finnish Church in London, the
Norwegian Church and Seamen’s
Mission in London, and the Swedish
Church in London. You are all heartily
welcomed to our network! This network
is covering Britain and Ireland –which
is also the interest area of the Churches.
There is every reason to work together
– to focus on the Co which stresses the
togetherness between us with a
Scandinavian identity and affinity.

‘A nagging missionary with a vision’
could be my job description. Again and
again I am met with a big question
mark on the faces of members of our
member organisations, when the word
CoScan has been mentioned: ‘never
heard of it’ is a common reply. This
clearly means that we are not doing
well enough to reach out. Admittedly
CoScan is known by many, but I would
like there to be a better penetration of
its existence into people’s minds.
To reiterate from previous
Magazines, we have three main
vehicles for our main objective which is
linking and supporting our member
organisations; these vehicles are the
Magazine, the Website and Meetings.
The Magazine is, in my view, nicely
developing into a membership
magazine … but perhaps we are
barking up the wrong tree? If so, you
should express your views! I am well
aware of the fact that more or less every
issue of the Magazine, for years on end,
has contained encouragement for
people to respond, with not much as a
result. Though at present we work
without an appointed editor, would a
‘Letter to the Editor’ be a good idea for
4

Societies

1969. The work involved helping
Scandinavian seamen to make phone
calls home, serving coffee and waffles,
providing Scandinavian newspapers
and putting on Scandinavian films. It
was also enjoyable to help the local
Scandinavians to get into contact with
fellow countrymen. The friendships
forged during this period have
certainly stood the test of time!
Unfortunately, the Seamen’s Church
had to close at the end of 1972 as the
nature of shipping changed with
considerably less time in port and most
ships docking at Fawley oil terminal.
As a leaving present, the minister
presented me with a set of full size
Scandinavian flags. We have since
had a stand made and display these
flags at most occasions.
Together with the local
Scandinavians, I wanted to fill the gap
left by the closure of the church and
decided to set up something of our own
early in 1973. Initially we called
ourselves simply the Scandinavian
Society which was later changed to
Hampshire Anglo-Scandinavian
Society, HASS, as this better reflected
the make-up of the society.
We did not receive any financial
assistance from the Scandinavian
governments. We realised that we
would have to manage through fund
raising and membership fees. We put
an advert in the local paper with an
invitation for those interested to attend
a meeting to form a Scandinavian
society. The meeting took place and a
committee was formed. The
membership was no more than 20 to
start off but quickly grew. Initially, my
role was that of social secretary getting

Hampshire AngloScandinavian Society:
A fortieth birthday party
by Ingrid Brown and Yvonne
Richardson

Ingrid Brown

At the end of September just over forty
members and guests gathered in a
Romsey restaurant to celebrate the
fortieth anniversary of the creation of
HASS, the Hampshire AngloScandinavian Society.
A bit of history and background …
Visiting merchant seamen had long
been able to count on the support of
the Scandinavian Seamen’s church in
Southampton. In the early years the
ministry was managed from Norway
and after that from Sweden. The
Seamen’s church in the centre of the
city also became a meeting point for
the local Scandinavians.
I started helping out in the church in
5

started with organising the format and
frequency of our meetings. To begin
with, we hired a room at the University
of Southampton once a month where
we could have film shows and lectures
and, of course, have coffee and
Scandinavian cakes. Later we found
other venues for our regular meetings.
As the social secretary and later as
president my main objective was to
carry on and promote Scandinavian
traditions. At that time my own two
children were young and I wanted
them and the other Scandinavian
children to have as much opportunity
as possible to experience the highlights
of the Scandinavian year. We started
by celebrating midsummer in
members’ gardens with dancing round
the midsummer pole following
Swedish traditions and singing round a
bonfire as in Denmark and Norway.
We soon branched out and organised a
17th of May picnic in the New Forest.
Our Christmas parties have been very
popular from the start; the adults’
traditional smörgåsbord has lacked
none of the traditional specialities even
in the beginning when shopping for the
ingredients needed careful planning.
The children’s Christmas party saw
Father Christmas coming and he has
continued to do so for forty years…
there are certainly plenty of good
children in Hampshire! Most of our
children have participated in the St
Lucia procession over the years and
learnt the Scandinavian Christmas
songs. We always had raffles and craft
stalls to try to raise money.
Over the years HASS has flourished
and we now have around 130 adult
members. Naturally, we have had our

ups and downs but in spite of us now
being able to travel more easily and
cheaply to Scandinavia, the society is
still thriving. We now celebrate
fastelavn in the spring, do fungi and
berry hunts in the New Forest in the
autumn and enjoy a lively crayfish
party in August.

Crayfish party with special party hats

HASS has mostly consisted of Swedes,
Norwegians, and Danes, though we
have had some Finnish and Icelandic
members over the years and one of our
members comes from the Faroe
Islands. We’ve had clay pigeon shoots,
treasure hunts on Scandinavian themes,
Valborgsmässoafton with a proper fire,
Viking evening, picnics on Beaulieu
Beach, walks in the forest and a coach
trip to see Mamma Mia in London.

Valborg with singing, some in student caps

6

HASS provides a framework for relaxed
socialising with a Scandinavian flavour.
It brings us together on a regular basis to
share our different Scandinavian
traditions with each other and with our
British members. Most importantly it
allows our children to be familiar and to
enjoy these traditions.
Most of us are married to British
partners and we have also some totally
British members who are interested in
Scandinavian culture; HASS is open to
all Scandinavians and to anyone
interested in Scandinavian culture and
tradition.
Now back to our fortieth birthday
celebrations. It was a great evening with
several of the founding members

present. We were very pleased to be
joined by Michael and Camilla
Persson, the vicar and welfare officer
from the Swedish Church in London
as well as Eva Robards, the
Chairman of CoScan, who explained
the purpose of this organisation.
After a welcome drink we settled
down to a lovely meal with some
singing and speeches in Scandinavian tradition. The party provided
plenty of opportunity to reminisce as
well as looking forward to many,
many more years together in HASS!

University of Sheffield Centre for Nordic Studies
by Andrew Linn
Background
The University of Sheffield’s Centre
for Nordic Studies was launched in
October 2012. This marked the
formal institutional recognition by the
University of Nordic studies as an
area where significant existing
activity could be further supported
and developed.
The Centre’s aim is to ‘support the
understanding, use and enjoyment of
Nordic languages and cultures’ and
has in the past year already
established itself as a recognised
presence on the University’s

Faculty of Arts and Humanities, Sheffield University

7

research and cultural landscape.
Nordic studies are poorly
represented in Higher Education in
the UK, as many of you are probably
aware, and the Centre is a step
towards improving that. The only
academic departments offering fullservice provision in teaching and
research are at University College,
London and the University of
Edinburgh. These are supplemented
by research centres at the University
of Aberdeen and the University of
Highlands and Islands, both focusing
on medieval and Viking Scandinavia
and its impact upon Scotland. While
many local organisations work
tirelessly to promote the Nordic
world, at university level there was no
formal body between London and
Scotland working to support the study
of and engagement with the Nordic
world when our Centre was
established in May 2012.
On a local level, the University of
Sheffield has a long history of
Scandinavian activities. Danish was
taught in the Department of Germanic
Studies from 1948 to 1974 and
replaced with Swedish in the period
1974 to 2008, when formal teaching
of Nordic languages ceased.
However, links with all the Nordic
countries remained strong and varied,
encompassing student mobility in
both directions, research visits and
collaborations.
As well as teaching, student
exchange and research, the University
has in recent years witnessed a variety
of cultural activities celebrating
Nordic culture in Sheffield, such as
the 2009 Carl Nielsen conference and

the 2010 Nordic Spring concert series.
The student Scandinavian Society
currently has around 130 members. In
short, the University of Sheffield has
had and continues to have strong links
with Scandinavia, and profiling and
coordinating this activity through a
formal Centre has proven beneficial
and productive. The University’s
Modern Languages Teaching Centre,
for example, has added Danish to its
MA programme in Translation
Studies.
Activities
The Centre is directed by a group of
three co-directors (Prof. A. Linn, Dr C.
Roth and Prof. R. Stern) and acts as a
sort of clearing-house for any activities
related to its mission by supporting and
profiling them as effectively as we can.
On an academic level, we act as an
anchor for a range of research projects
which include Ola Nordmann Goes
West: Using Virtual Worlds in
Studying Migration from Norway, The
Music of Björk, Danish Identity (see
R. Jenkins (2011) Being Danish:
Paradoxes of Identity in Everyday Life,
Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum
Press) and Danish Philosophy (see R.
Stern (2012) Understanding Moral
Obligation: Kant, Hegel, Kierkegaard,
Cambridge University Press).
Nevertheless, our aim is to appeal to a
broad audience not just from the
University but across the region and
the first six months of operation
witnessed a full programme of
activities.
The October 2012 launch event was
followed by a talk by Richard Jenkins
in November on ‘Being Danish’. In
8

early 2013 we marked the bicentenary
of the philosopher Søren Kierkegaard’s
birth with talks by Hugh Pyper
(Department of Biblical Studies) and
Robert Stern (Department of
Philosophy). This varied programme of
events continued in March with Oliver
Johnson’s ‘Physical Fairytale:
Finland’s Jukola Relay’ before
concluding in May with a talk by
Louise Sørensen on the ‘Ola
Nordmann Goes West’ project jointly
organised with the University’s Arts
Enterprise initiative.
In addition to the talks mentioned
above, the Centre has also hosted a
visit by the Norwegian Language
Council and a Scandinavian Christmas
Party in December 2012. In February
2013 its ‘Northern Lights Festival of
Ideas and Music’ presented 4 concerts
and 3 talks around the city.

The University has Centres of Dutch
Studies and Luxembourg Studies,
funded by the respective governments,
which serve to teach the languages and
promote the culture in the UK, and it is
our ambition to be able to make similar
provision in Nordic Studies.
To find out more about the Centre
for Nordic Studies, please visit our
website: www.sheffield.ac.uk/nordicstudies.

North Sea from our Emigration project

Future plans
The Centre for Nordic Studies is
already well-known in the Sheffield
area, but we anticipate that being
profiled by CoScan will draw
interested parties from a wider region
to our events. Three talks are arranged
this autumn on the Danish Golden
Age, Nordic Noir, and Norwegian
language policy, and in 2014 we are
hoping to launch a research project on
ex-patriate Scandinavians in the North
of England.
Our level of ambition is only
tempered by a lack of guaranteed
funding – a problem with which all our
associations are familiar!
The Centre’s ultimate aim is to
provide staffing, both to support
activity and also to provide teaching.

‘Ola Nordmann Goes West’ is a
University of Sheffield research
project funded by the Arts and
Humanities Research Council. At its
centre is a purpose-built 3D virtual
world recreating the journey of a
typical late 19th-century Norwegian
emigrant, ‘Ola Nordmann’ as he makes
his way from Bergen in Norway to
Hull and then Liverpool, before finally
boarding the ship to New York. The
aim of the project is to investigate
whether an immersive 3D environment
can bring a static historical event to
life and garner personal insights of that
event from those engaged in family
and local history research.

9

On 25 October 2013 the Anglo-Swedish Society held a ball at the Mansion House in the
City of London, by kind permission of The Rt. Hon. The Lord Mayor. The hosts were
the Chairman of the Society, Alexander Malmaeus, and his wife Jackie AppelMalmaeus. Their 293 distinguished guests wined, dined and danced the night away until
the small hours.

The Chapter of York and
York Anglo-Scandinavian
Society
invite you to Sankta Lucia on Thursday
19 December at 7.30 pm in York Minster.
It is the first time that this traditional
Swedish Festival of Light will take place
in York Minster.
The service will include a traditional
procession consisting of Scandinavian
and British singers from around York
as well as the ‘Vaxholm boys’ choir’
from Sweden.
No ticket is required.

Swedish Church in London
Ulrika Eleonora Church offers Lucia
services on several occasions in December.
These are followed by coffee, saffron buns
and ginger bread, when also glögg and
items from the Christmas fair are being
sold.
In addition, the Ulrika Eleonora church
choir is participating in the Lucia
celebration in St Paul’s Cathedral.
www.svenskakyrkan.se/london

Photo: Karl Liljas

and
Lucia is also celebrated in many other of
our member organisations, as here in
Hampshire Anglo-Scandinavian Society.

11

CoScan AGM 2014 in Edinburgh
You are invited to join us for a weekend in Edinburgh
Friday 25 April – Saturday 26 April

Preliminary Programme
Friday 25 April, evening
Reception at the Norwegian Consulate, 12 Rutland Square, Edinburgh
Saturday 26 April, morning
Annual General Meeting next door to Masson House
After the AGM the Vice Chairman of Norwegian Scottish Association
Kirsti Dinnis will give a free guided tour of part of the historic Royal
Mile in Edinburgh.
Saturday evening
Dinner at the Royal Scots Club, £35 exclusive of wine
29-31 Abercromby Place, Edinburgh EH3 6QE
(www.royalscotsclub.com)
After dinner a short programme of music and some sing-along.
Sunday 27 April
No official programme
Accommodation
Hotel Masson House (18 Holyrood Park Road, EH16 5AY, tel 0131 651298
www.edinburghfirst.co.uk, click on Masson House)
Double room £92 double occupancy per night
Double room £72 single occupancy per night, 5 single rooms £72 per night
These prices include full breakfast.
(Alternatively, you may want to find your own accommodation.)
Further information and booking form will follow in the new year.
Organiser: Norwegian Scottish Association, Edinburgh
Contact: eltyson@hernar.co.uk.
12

Culture
Marketing Norway:
The Forgotten Story of
Henrik Steffens
by Peter Fjågesund
– Guest writer
History is full of great names that
through the merciless process of history
itself are transformed from greatness to
insignificance. Some few are recovered
from oblivion, more or less by
coincidence; most are not. One of these
faded figures is Henrik (or Heinrich)
Steffens (1773‒1845).
In the early decades of the 1800s, and
largely as a result of the Romantic
movement with its interest in untouched
nature and people living in close
communion with it, Scandinavia and
especially Norway acquired
considerable interest in Britain and on
the Continent. In the course of the
whole century, around two hundred
travel accounts about Norway were
published in Britain alone. In the
eighteenth century there were hardly
any, with Mary Wollstonecraft’s
wonderful Letters Written in Sweden,
Norway and Denmark (1796) as an
exception from the rule.
As to the British discovery of
Norway, it is difficult to pinpoint one
person in particular who opened the
modern and more tourist-based
connection across the North Sea. In the
first couple of decades after Waterloo,
the so-called ‘salmon lords’ seem to
have arrived in gradually increasing

Peter Fjågesund is Professor of British
Literature and Civilisation at Telemark
University College, Norway. He has
written various books and articles on
19th and 20th century British literature,
with particular focus on AngloScandinavian relations.
numbers, soon also attracting other
groups. When it comes to the Danish
and German discovery, however, one
man deserves special attention.
Steffens was not just anyone. First of
all, the son of Danish-German parents
who lived in Norway but moved to
Denmark when Steffens was six, he was
the cousin of another great
Scandinavist, Nicolai Frederik
Grundtvig (their mothers were sisters).
As a young man he went to Germany to
study geology, and here he rapidly
developed into a natural philosopher of
considerable repute, knowing all the
central German artists and intellectuals,
including Schelling, Fichte, Novalis,
Goethe and the Schlegel brothers, and
13

through them he adopted the new
Romantic gospel. At the age of twentynine, he then returned for a period to
Copenhagen, where he delivered a
series of mesmerizing lectures – most
of them from the top of his head –
which gathered huge audiences and
essentially introduced Romanticism to
Scandinavia. One of his most
enthusiastic disciples was the young
Adam Oehlenschläger, who at the age
of twenty-three went home after an allnight discussion with Steffens and
wrote Guldhornene (‘The Golden
Horns’), the poem that marks the
inauguration of Romanticism in Danish
literature.

on a new career, which would have a
direct bearing on Norway’s reputation
abroad: he started writing novels, or as
he himself called them: cycles of short
stories. The first of these is Familierne
Walseth og Leith (‘The Families
Walseth and Leith’) which was
published simultaneously in Denmark
and Germany in 1827. The second of
the novels came out the following year
and was called Fire Nordmænd (‘Four
Norwegians’).
Familierne Walseth og Leith has an
intricate plot with several narrative
voices, and it moves geographically
between Turkey, Corsica, Tunisia and
several countries on the Continent. It
also involves the English Leith family,
thus weaving together a truly
international plot. But at the centre of
the novel, and covering the first eighty
pages, is Rjukan, a place of a handful of
farms in the remote mountains of
Telemark, which would later become
the site of the world’s greatest hydroelectric power station and the scene of
the heavy water sabotage actions during
the Second World War.
The Rjukan waterfall and the neighbouring Gausta mountain (the highest in
southern Norway) had only been discovered as a tourist destination in 1810,
and by the 1820s the number of foreign
travellers was still minimal. This is
where Steffens made the great
difference. First, despite the fact that he
had never been there, he gave a
description of the Rjukan scenery that
was detailed, vivid and realistic.
Second, he offered an enthusiastic
celebration of the local Norwegian
farmer, who was depicted not only as
an incarnation of honesty, wisdom and

Henrik Steffens

Despite his ambiguous national status,
Steffens came to be regarded as a
German philosopher, and he taught at a
number of German universities,
eventually taking over the chair of
Hegel himself in Berlin at the latter’s
death in 1831. Still, he always spoke
German with an accent and called
himself ‘der Norweger’, and throughout
his career he visited the country of his
birth altogether three times. After the
second visit in 1824, he then embarked
14

physical strength; in the aftermath of
1814 and the Norwegian Constitution,
he was also elevated into a political
idol, whose love of freedom pointed
back to his Viking origins. Indeed,
Steffens’s heroic farmers are direct and
highly conscious descendants of these
forefathers, who at the time were
increasingly being used in the various
nation-building projects in Britain,
Germany and elsewhere.

made direct references to it and made
use of elements from the novel,
suggesting that Steffens was the
immediate inspiration for their
journeys. Danes, too, flocked to
Norway, and especially to Rjukan,
including such ‘Golden Age’ painters as
Martinus Rørbye, Wilhelm Marstrand,
Louis Gurlitt and Frederik Sødring. By
the end of the century, Rjukan was one
of the most important tourist
destinations in the country. Even Jules
Verne wrote a novel, The Lottery Ticket
(1886), set in Rjukan, after a visit
several years earlier, which was
illustrated by the famous Gustave Doré
himself.
As suggested above, Henrik Steffens
is now a faded figure, even though a
chair named after him has recently been
established at the Humboldt University
in Berlin. Even in descriptions of his
career, his fictional works are often
hardly mentioned, and the novels
themselves are still only available in
their nineteenth-century editions, in
Fraktur (or Gothic print); they, too, are
fading away in libraries and,
occasionally, in antiquarian bookshops,
with hardly anyone reading them. The
fact remains, however, that once upon a
time this man, who knew the Danes and
the Germans from the inside, proved
that fiction can do unexpected things.
Without Steffens, Kaiser Wilhelm II
would hardly have been coming to the
Norwegian fjords almost every summer
between 1889 and 1914, and raised the
giant Fridtjof statue still towering on a
promontory at Vangsnes in Sogn. In
fact, when on 25 July 1914 he received
the telegram which informed him that
the Austrian-Serbian ultimatum had

The Rjukan waterfall from a German travel account
by August Moritz, Tagebuch der Reisen in Norwegen
in den Jahren 1847 und 1851 (1851)

With his novels, in other words, which
became a major literary success in
Denmark as well as Germany, Steffens
appears, almost single-handedly, to
have laid the foundation for the almost
obsessive German fascination with
Norway. Not only did a number of
German writers and artists visit the
country in the years following the
book’s publication; they also frequently
15

expired and that war was inevitable, he
was sitting in a log chair in Balestrand
in the Sognefjord, in the studio of the
national romantic painter Hans Dahl,
trying to enjoy the world that Steffens
so effectively had conjured up nearly a
century earlier.

Rjukan valley, with the Gausta mountain in the
background, by W. M. Carpelan in Voyage
Pittoresque aux Alpes Norvégiennes (1821-23)

The extraordinary Magnus
Carlsen

of Cumbria. With a Norwegian wife it
is absolutely natural that I should be
fascinated by the emergence of this
shooting star in world chess.

by Peter Wright
Adapted by Anna Sophie Strandli

My interest in chess started in the 6th
Form at the Birkenhead Institute
Grammar School where I established
a school chess competition and later
at the Rock Ferry High School where
I introduced lunch time chess.
Participants paid 1penny to hire a
chess set and when we had sufficient
funds more chess sets would be
added. This of course was quite some
time before Magnus was born and in
the interim period a cousin of mine,
Peter Cloudsdale, became Chess
Champion of Cumbria. With a
Norwegian wife it is absolutely
natural that I should be fascinated by
the emergence of this shooting star in
world chess.
This of course was quite some time
before Magnus was born and in the
interim period a cousin of mine, Peter
Cloudsdale, became Chess Champion

Magnus Carlsen was a quite
extraordinary boy, born in Tønsberg,
on 30th November 1990. His father
had a passion for chess and taught
Magnus at the age of five, and
Magnus soon regarded chess as a
great personal challenge. His first aim
was to beat his sister on a regular
basis. And then his father was next in
line to face some of the remarkable
mating combinations that already
were being created in the mind of the
young Magnus. It suffices to say that
he became an international Grand
Master at the age of 13, the youngest
16

ever at that time. His progress
continued and at the age of nineteen
he became the youngest chess player
to be ranked the world number 1!
How this was achieved was
remarkable, for Magnus had also a
very high regard for his personal
fitness, something which stood him in
excellent stead throughout some
extremely long and potentially
exhausting tournaments.
In his early days he was noted for
his very aggressive and exciting style.
His determination sometimes led him
into positions of difficulty where he
needed his developing skill in the end
game. An interesting point about his
early games was that he did not seem
to mind how they opened. He then
started to develop a passion for the
control of the middle game, a fact
which disconcerted some opponents!
It is worth noting that he was a most
prolific participant in tournaments all
around the world from a very young
age and that with his passion for
football and other sports he continued
to maintain his high level of fitness. I
always visualize Magnus, like myself,
doing press ups first thing in the
morning before chess life begins.
The great English player, Grand
Master Jon Speelman, analyzing
several of Carlsen’s endgames from
the 2012 London Classic describes
what he calls ‘the Carlsen effect’:
‘…through the combined force of his
skill and no less important his
reputation, he drives his opponents
into errors. He plays on forever,
calmly, methodically and, perhaps
most importantly of all, without fear:
calculating superbly, very few

outright mistakes and a good
proportion of the very best moves.
This makes him a monster and makes
many opponents wilt’.
Following his activity in the world
of international chess the March 2010
FIDE (World Chess Federation)
rating list showed Carlsen with a new
peak rating of 2813. A figure that
only Kasparov had bettered at that
time. The FIDE ranking list in
January 2013 made it official that
Magnus Carlsen had achieved the
highest rating in the history of chess.
His new rating of 2862 is 10 points
higher than Gary Kasparov’s
legendary record from 1999.
Sponsors in general are not
interested in individual players,
though Magnus Carlsen is an
exception to this rule. Andrew
Paulson, the Chief Executive of Agon
which markets the World Chess
Championship, says that Carlsen
presents a corrective to the
stereotypes of chess stars as ‘old,
cranky, strange Russians whose
names all start with a K’.
As the winner of the Candidates
tournament 2013, Magnus Carlsen was
is
the official challenger of reigning
World Champion Viswanathan
Anand. The match was in progress
while this article was being written,
but just before going to press we
learnt that Magnus is now World
Champion!

17

From the bookshelf

Danish-Norwegian Kim Leine was in
October awarded the Nordic Council's
Literature Prize for 2013 for his novel
Profeterne i Evighedsfjorden. This is
the story of the Danish priest Morten
Falck who travels to Greenland at the
end of the 1700s. Leine has lived and
worked in Greenland for 15 years.

The Bone Thief and The Traitorsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; Pit by
V. M. Whitworth are the first two
novels of a trilogy whose third book has
yet to be published.
The setting is the turbulent world of
tenth-century England, a country
witnessing ferocious and complex
power struggles between the factions of
Mercia, Wessex and the most recent
invaders, the Vikings.
In the first novel we quickly become
involved with the young cleric Wulfgar
as he undergoes many adventures in
order to wrest the bones of St Oswald
from Viking-held territory. In the
second he is forced to confront
powerful forces in order to prove the
innocence of his unjustly condemned
brother.
Both novels are an excellent read, but
they are more than just that, for the
author is a distinguished historian in the
field of Anglo-Scandinavian studies, so
the background is as well researched
and authentic as you could wish. Highly
recommended.

In this book from new knit designer
Eline Oftedal, four iconic Norwegian
knitting patterns (Marius, Voss,
Setesdal and Fana) are given new
shapes and forms. Stories about the
inspiration and traditions behind each of
the patterns are included, charting their
origins and exploring what it is about

these patterns that so appeals to knitters
all over the world. We are used to
seeing these patterns on sweaters, but
here is a collection of twenty
contemporary projects, such as iPad and
phone cover, a teddy bear, a toilet roll
holder and even a pair of hot pants.

Books by CoScan
members
Anette Darbyshire
Gowns of the Haunted
Welcome to an emporium of mystery
and secrets, where even the ghosts
aren’t what they seem.

Published by Anova Books 2013
112 pages
Language: English (also available in
Norwegian)
ISBN 9781908449474

Kate Hardy can’t believe her luck when
a stranger inadvertently hands her a
lifeline. This leads her to ‘Gowns of the
Haunted’, a mysterious, quirky
emporium of fashion ranging from
modern day goth outfits to vintage
dresses and accessories. She is
overjoyed when offered a job and free
accommodation in the small flat above
the shop but soon realises that
something isn’t quite right; she learns
that the owner’s sister was recently
murdered in the shop and traumatised
by her night terrors, Kate seeks comfort
from her new friends. As nothing is
quite what it seems, and her safety
increasingly threatened, Kate no longer
knows who to trust: the living or the
dead.

55 Christmas Balls to Knit by Arne
Nerjordet and Carlos Zachrison:
inspired by traditional Norwegian
knitwear, these designs for holiday
ornaments integrate the old with the
new. With crafts based on the authors'
original designs, this guide gives
knitters the chance to make their very
own versions of these playful
decorations. Each pattern can easily be
adapted to hats, mittens, or even
sweaters by the creative crafter.
Published by Search Press Ltd 2011
144 pages
ISBN 13: 9781844487813
ISBN 10: 1844487814

Published by AD Publishing 2013
141 pages
ASIN B006QLUXFY

19

A Swedish sightseer
in London, 1890
by Alexis Säfström
Translated and introduced by his
great-niece, Brita Green

In May 1890, two brothers from Kalmar
in south-east Sweden, set off by train to
Gothenburg, in order to board a ship
for England. The brothers were en
route to Australia, where they were
hoping either to set up in business or
'dig for treasure’. In a letter home one
of them describes his impressions of
London:

The Scandinavian Sailors’ Hostel in West India
Docks in the East End of London, which from 1888
to 1929 offered a haven to thousands of Scandinavian sailors and emigrants passing through London.

May. We stood in one place for three
hours, while the demonstration passed
by. It was amazing to see that not one
single person in such a large crowd was
drunk. In the procession itself there
were about 100,000 workers, every
union with its banner and a band
playing, about 600 unions took part.
On the way to Hyde Park we passed
St Paul’s Cathedral. The most beautiful
thing in it was the fine stained glass in
the windows. The church itself is a
beautiful building, but almost all
buildings in London are blackened by
smoke, which quite ruins their
appearance.
On the Monday we went to
Kensington Museum (now the V&A), an
excellent collection of antiquities:
statues, paintings, musical instruments,
tapestries etc. We also went to see
Madame Tussaud’s wax cabinet of
royalty and famous men, but that was
not worth a visit, although the English
themselves think it is marvellous.

The North Sea crossing was quite calm.
On the second day we had fog and were
nearly rammed by a sailing-ship, which
veered off at the last minute so that it
only damaged a couple of plates.
We had booked accommodation in
the Sailors’ Hostel, and we had a
friendly welcome there by the host and
hostess. The Sailors’ Hostel is an
excellent institution, and all emigrants
to Australia should contact it both for
help with buying tickets and for their
stay in London. The food was simple
but all clean and good-tasting, and one
could find no fault with the beds or the
room. The only unpleasant thing was a
few cockroaches, but it is almost
impossible to get rid of them.
On the North Sea we had had the
company of a young businessman from
Gothenburg called Berlin. He could
speak English, and we went out with
him to have a look at London. We were
just in time to see the big workers’
demonstration in Hyde Park on 4th
20

On Friday 9th May we went on board
the Liguria. If we had known how
unpleasant third class would be, we
would most certainly have bought
second class tickets. Let me tell you
what we had to eat. For breakfast bread
and butter and a gruel or porridge that
was impossible to eat. For dinner soup,
meat and potatoes. The soups were
inedible except when it was pea-soup.
The meat was not so bad, and with
bread it was quite palatable, but the
potatoes had sprouted and were rotten,
impossible to eat. In the evening we had
bread and butter. The tea and coffee
were undrinkable.
Fritiof had a very difficult voyage,
and I thought he would not get through
it alive. From London to Aden the
weather was fine, but from Aden to
Melbourne the weather was quite hard.
I myself was not seasick the whole
time, but towards the end of the journey
– along with the other third class
passengers – I suffered tummy upsets
because of the bad food.
The whole voyage was most
unpleasant, firstly because of the lack of
hygiene with the food and the cleaning
of knives, forks and plates; secondly
mattresses and pillows were so hard
that you woke up several times in the
night; thirdly there were third-class
passengers who behaved like hooligans
and we had many unpleasant
experiences. We were helped on several
occasions by a Dane who has lived ten
years in America.
I have nothing to say about Plymouth
and Gibraltar except that we saw
magnificent fortresses in both places. In
Naples we could go ashore and do some
sightseeing. Naples has a grand

situation on the Bay close to Vesuvius,
and the Italians have every right to
boast about it and its beautiful situation.
Port Said, Colombo, Albani, Adelaide –
we saw all these only at a distance.
Finally, on 21st June, we arrived in
Melbourne. You can imagine how
happy we were to be among good
honest people again.
The demonstration the brothers
witnessed in Hyde Park was one of
many in the 1890’s. They eventually led
to the formation of the Labour
Representation Committee, which in
1906 became the Labour Party.
Alexis settled in Australia, but his
brother returned to Sweden after two
years.

Vikings in the British
Museum – a new exhibition
CoScan Members are offered to join a
group lecture package, arranged for
the Anglo-Danish Society,
10.30-16.00 on 20 March 2014.
The cost will be £29.50 per person
which includes coffee & biscuits, the
curator's lecture, ticket to the
exhibition and guide (printed).
NB: lunch is not included in the cost.
If you would like to take part, please
email Lisbeth Ehlers
(ehlerslisbeth@me.com) before
15 February 2014.

21

training, I readily accepted an invitation
to become accompanist for the local
choral society which was rehearsing a
tuneful and relatively undemanding
cantata in preparation for a trip to
Denmark. All went swimmingly until it
came to a passage where there was a
change of time from four beats in the
bar to six. The conductor, a local
ambulance driver and a delightful man,
had not grasped this change, and in
consequence the choir never managed
to sing what was in the score. As
accompanist I gently contrasted the
score version with what the choir had
been singing. People noted the
difference, but this did not mean that
they agreed as to what they were going
to sing. A serious dilemma existed.
Some thought we should sing what was
in the score, while others thought that
this was being pernickety and that we
should sing what came easiest. Norway
being a democratic land, the issue
required a democratic solution. The
next rehearsal was given over to
allowing everyone to air their views.
The composer, had he been present,
would have been allowed his say, but
his view would have carried no more
weight than that of the lowliest choir
member. For more than an hour and a
half discussion went back and forth,
until finally the matter was put to the
vote. In a show of hands the choir
decided to sing the version not in the
score, as this was easier and less likely
to go wrong. I could not help wondering how Beethoven would have
fared if he had been required to submit
the last movement of his choral symphony to a similarly democratic choir.

Culture clashes
by Iain Robertson
Every country has its own culture and
customs – those practices and
expressions which are taken for granted
but which may not apply elsewhere.
Here in Britain we ask people ‘How are
you?’ but would be surprised if we
received in reply a detailed account of
someone else’s state of health. In
Britain it has become increasingly
common to say a cheery ‘All right?’ to
people you meet casually. This
surprises and bewilders foreign visitors.
As a surprised and slightly indignant
Danish student said recently, ‘Why
should anyone think I’m not all right!’
I lived in Norway for fourteen years,
and no Brit can live in Norway long
without being aware of cultural
differences, though these need not be
quite so dramatic as those exposed in
the television series Lillyhammer. In
this an American gangster moves to
Norway in order to avoid being caught
by a rival gang. The series is hilarious
precisely because it focuses on cultureclashes between America’s gangland, in
which the toughest and most ruthless
always wins, and Norway’s liberal
democratic culture with its gentle
emphasis on equal rights and
consideration for all. Transposed to
small-town Norway, the gangster
causes havoc and quickly learns to
exploit the system to his own
advantage.
I experienced a particularly striking
example of just how democratic
Norway is very early in my
Scandinavian career. A musician by

22

Perhaps the most obvious cultural
difference between Britain and Norway
is over the thorny issue of alcohol. Brits
are horrified at the sky-high prices, and
even more surprised when they read
calls in the press to send them even
higher. Wines and spirits are of course
only available in the state-controlled
Vinmonopol shops, and these seem to
operate on the principle that they should
be closed whenever you’re most likely
to want to shop there. One Whitsun I
was due to have guests to lunch on the
Sunday, and without thinking popped
down on Saturday morning to the
nearest Vinmonopol. To my dismay it
was firmly stengt (closed). No-one had
told me that wine and spirit outlets are
not allowed to open on the eve of major
festivals. Or on Sundays. Or on days
when there is an election. Or after a
certain time on Saturdays.
But enforcing virtue is not so easy.
Despite – or perhaps because of – the
tough licensing laws Norway has a
vigorous culture of illegal hjemmebrenning – making your own spirits.
There is little of this in Britain where
alcohol prices are comparatively low. In
rural Norway, on the other hand, there
is an official battle between the forces
of law and order and home distillers,
though one suspects that sometimes the
forces of law and order are not
unwilling to turn a blind eye to what
they know is going on. The rule is not
to do it blatantly and not to get caught.
There are times when a British
immigrant can find Norwegians – well,
a bit childish! Though maybe this is
because in Britain we’ve grown cynical
and have lost much of the freshness of

childhood. We do not for example on
social occasions go in for the singsongs which are a sine qua non of any
Scandinavian celebration. I recall a
choir tour in which the social
committee had been entrusted with the
task of keeping spirits high on a long
coach journey. There was (of course)
lots of communal singing, people told
jokes, they invented limericks and there
was even the odd period of comparative
silence. There was one activity,
however, for which I was wholly
unprepared. As spirits were beginning
to flag towards the end of the day,
packets of bubble gum were distributed
and everyone was invited to partake in
an orgy of mastication before
competing to see who could blow the
biggest bubble. The sight of choirmen,
some of whom looked as fierce as Eric
Bloodaxe, and their highly respectable
wives chewing on the bright pink gum
and blowing bubbles like five-year-olds
is one which will linger in the memory.

Illustration: Brenda Tyler

23

That cake didn’t rise – it couldn’t
because I had set the oven temperature
according to Celsius, but the oven was
made to work in Fahrenheit. Another
temperature problem I had was when
my kitten was poorly and the vet said
its temperature was 104°. I had no feel
for what that could be in my Celsius
gradation which, in turn, that vet
refused to know anything about.
A Swedish colleague of mine got her
measuring shock when she was to write
her height in feet and inches in a form,
before she started working in the
laboratory. I helped her with the
calculations, but we were both
flabbergasted when the next question
was her weight: in stones and pounds.
Coming from a country where stones
can be all sizes, we had some
difficulties with the answer.

A former foreigner’s
frustrations
by Eva Robards
Britain is a nation of foreigners. Some
have arrived early, so to speak, as they
are descendants from immigrants
generations ago. When I arrived from
Sweden only a quarter of a century ago,
I found myself struggling with some of
the habits that I encountered. Here is a
selection.
Habits in the community
Oh, those bare legs in the winter! And
no coats when partying in the evening!
Little girls, and also a little older girls,
walk around in the cold with not much
clothing to protect them. There may be
snow on the ground, but that doesn’t
seem to deter the courageous ones, who
would be regarded as mad if they were
dressed like that in similar conditions in
Sweden. I have come to understand
that, mentally, cold weather doesn’t
happen in the UK.
It still feels awkward, after all these
years in this country, to turn my back
towards people when passing them in a
theatre row. In Sweden we think that is
rude and pass people face to face. And
my etiquette book has men letting
women go downstairs first, and upstairs
last, to avoid any looking under the
skirts. The Englishmen being gentlemen
keep below the woman to support her,
and get their view.

Eating
Something I really like in the UK is the
heated plates for warm food. Going
back home, it seems so uncultivated
with cold plates all over – a bit
shocking actually.
Alright, Bovril and Marmite may be
good for you, but my taste buds shiver
and my digestive system makes a
somersault already at the thought of
these culinary overkills. Then (in a
health shop!) in Sweden I found a small
jar of marmite, and it cost a fortune – a
double whammy-shock in my own
homeland.
A confusing matter is that here chips
are not chips but crisps. In many other
countries crisps are chips. Why not ban
them all – they are not good for you
anyhow.

Measuring
Soon after my arrival here, I wanted to
make a sponge cake for some friends.

24

House and home
Plumbing: I won’t say a word about
outdoor pipes, or boiler tanks on the first
floor causing indoor flooding. I’ll confine
myself to taps: why are mixer taps so
rare? My hands freeze up and cook
alternatively when I wash them having to
move back and forth between extreme
temperatures.
Electricity … those ever so safe plugs.
Heavy and bulky they are when travelling

and with modern technology it’s
necessary to have a number of them – plus
adaptor plugs – in the luggage. If only
plugs could be slimmed down!
Oh dear, I think I’d better stop now.
Otherwise you will think that I am
complaining, which I am not. Actually, I
do love this quirky country!

Two Viking disasters in England
by Peter Addyman
in Southampton and the West Country
in 981. In 982 three pirate crews landed
in Dorset and ravaged in Portland. By
993 Olaf Tryggvason, later king of
Norway, was leading the substantial
force that defeated the English at the
battle of Maldon, an heroic disaster
commemorated in the famous AngloSaxon poem. In 1002 the king ordered
the English to slay all the Danish people
in England on St Brice’s Day, 13th
November. An Oxford charter records
that the Danes there were slaughtered in
St Frideswide’s Church. In 1012 the
Vikings, by that time ravaging
everywhere, perhaps replied by
martyring the Archbishop of
Canterbury.
Two archaeological finds have
recently added some dramatic
archaeological verification of this
mayhem of 1000 years ago. Both are
mass burials of young men of

As 2013 comes to an end it is worth
remembering that exactly a thousand
years ago, at the end of the year 1013,
Anglo-Scandinavian relations reached
what has turned out, after 1000 years, to
have been an all-time rock bottom low.
Ethelred, the English king, after three
decades of Viking attacks and the
payment of ever-increasing Danegelds
to buy off the invaders, fled to the Isle
of Wight at Christmas, then to
Normandy and left England under the
rule of Svein king of Denmark. ‘At this
time’ remarks the Anglo-Saxon
Chronicle, ‘nothing went right for this
nation, neither in the south nor in the
north’.
The story of the previous thirty years,
mainly told through the Anglo-Saxon
Chronicle, is one of constant raids,
treaties, tribute payments, duplicity and
disasters. The Scandinavian raids started
25

Scandinavian origin who met a violent
end. One was made near Weymouth,
Dorset, not far from where the 982
pirate crews landed. The other was
found under St John’s College in the
University of Oxford and may relate to
the St Frideswide massacre. Both have
been the subject of intense research, the
results of which are now becoming
available.
The Dorset find was made by Oxford
Archaeology in 2009 during the
construction of the Weymouth Relief
Road at Ridgeway Hill north of
Weymouth. 51 decapitated skeletons
had been buried in the top of a longdisused Roman quarry pit. Radiocarbon
dating showed that they belong to the

Circle. Others had had a high protein
diet typical of contemporary burials in
Sweden. It is difficult to resist the
conclusion that the Ridgeway find
represents an execution cemetery from
the Ethelred period, perhaps even
victims of a St Brice’s Day massacre, or
perhaps one of the pirate crews of 982,
and that the victims were Vikings.
Interim conclusions from research on
the find will be presented to the Royal
Archaeological Institute in February
2014 but it is already clear that we have
here a Viking disaster.
Very similar evidence came from
the Oxford find. It was made when
St John’s College was building its
Kendrew Quadrangle in 2008. Thames
Valley Archaeological Services here
found 37 skeletons buried in the ditch of
a previously unknown Neolithic henge
monument. These were mostly robust
tall men aged between 16 and 25. Once
again strontium isotope analysis showed
they were of Scandinavian origin.
Collagen from their bones and teeth
showed that some had had substantial
amounts of seafood in their diet –
unlikely if they had been Oxford locals.
Careful examination of the skeletons
showed that most of the individuals had
been stabbed many times before death,
and some had older scars which
suggested they may have been warriors.
Some of the skeletons had been partly
burnt before burial. The remains have
been the subject of intense study and
analysis by the Oxford University
Research Laboratory for Archaeology
and the History of Art. The laboratory’s
conclusions can be read in the Oxford
Journal of Archaeology, 2011
(http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1

period AD 890-1030. Strontium isotope
analysis of their teeth enamel showed
that they had lived in various parts of
Scandinavia in their youth. Strontium
isotopes, naturally occurring in local
rocks and soils, are taken up by growing
teeth and reflect the geology of the area
of origin. One of the Ridgeway men
may have come from north of the Arctic
26

111/j.1468.2011.00380.x/ abstract). The
researchers suggest that the remains
may be the result of the St Frideswide
massacre of St Brice’s Day 1002,
brought outside the city for disposal
(St John’s College lies well outside the
early medieval town). They also
suggest, however, that, because the
remains seem clearly to be of a group of
battle-scarred warriors rather than the
rounded-up local Danish population,
they may represent a slaughtered group
of professional warriors. Another
Viking disaster, anyway.

Viking burials in St John's College, Oxford: three
skeletons lying where they were thrown into the
grave. Photo: Thames Valley Archaeological Service

The happiest country in the world
In September, the ‘World Happiness Report’, published by the Sustainable
Development Solutions Network (SDSN), crowned Denmark the happiest country in
the world. The report identifies the countries with the highest levels of happiness:
1. Denmark, 2. Norway, 3. Switzerland, 4. Netherlands, 5. Sweden.
A large GDP per capita, healthy life expectancy at birth and a lack of corruption in
leadership are three factors that the happiest countries have in common. But also
essential are three things over which individual citizens have a bit more control: a
sense of social support, freedom to make life choices and a culture of generosity.
But why Denmark over any of the other wealthy, democratic countries with small,
educated populations? You can see a few things Danes do well that any of us can
lobby for on page 29.

27

Andrézel (the pseudonym Boganis was
used by her father, Wilhelm Dinesen)

Quiz on

Denmark

7. In which year was the letter ‘å’
officially introduced? 1 1948

From CoScan Magazine 2013/1:

8. What is the highest recorded
temperature in Denmark? 2 36.4C
(in August 1975)

The happy winner with all
answers correct is Beverley Lane,
Sheffield. She has been sent a
prize (a DVD), given by the
Danish Embassy.
Congratulations!

9. When was the current law of
succession adopted? 1 2009 (as a
change to the previous law of 1953)

Answers

10. How many grandchildren does
Queen Margrethe have? 3 Eight

1. How many Danish Nobel Prize
winners are there? 3 Fourteen (not all
of them born or living in Denmark)

11. Which scientist has appeared on
bank notes? 1 Rømer and 2 Ørsted
and 3 Bohr

2. Which job did Ole Rømer have?
1 Royal Mathematician and 3 Head of
the Copenhagen Police

12. Which chemical element was first
identified in Copenhagen? 1 Hafnium
and 2 Aluminium (Bohrium is named
after Niels Bohr, but it was not
identified in Copenhagen)

3. In which year was the currency unit
‘krone’ introduced? 2 1875

13. How many of his fairy tales were
published during the life of H. C.
Andersen? 2 163 (5 more were
published later, while the most complete
English edition contains 159)

4. How many inhabited islands does
Denmark have (excluding Greenland
and the Faroe Islands)? 2 Between 70
and 80 (the number varies between
sources, but all are in this range)

14. During all of the Winter Olympics
Denmark has: 1 Won a silver in curling
(the only medal ever won by Denmark
at any Winter Olympics)

5. With which other country does
Denmark currently have a border
dispute? 3 Canada (the dispute
involves Hans Ø, between Greenland
and Canada)

15. Where can you see the ‘K-T
boundary’? 2 on Stevns (this boundary
separates the Cretaceous and the
Tertiary geological periods)

1. ‘Man and Pegasus’ (see picture) by a
famous sculptor, is in one of the parks.
2. There is an old castle, in which the
Earl of Bothwell, third husband of
Mary Stuart, was incarcerated for
several years.
3. The name actually means ‘pile of
gravel’ – although that would not be
obvious to today’s native speakers: they
might think it was something to do with
an island.
4. There is a theatre, which had its
heyday in the 1950’s, when the film
director Ingmar Bergman was its
artistic leader.
5. This building (see picture) is a fairly
recent landmark and known by an
alliterative (English) name.

The Happiest Country, cont. from page 27
– Danish families receive a total of 52 weeks of parental leave.
– Danish children have access to free or low-cost child care. This frees up
young mothers to return to the work-force if they’d like to. In Denmark 79 %
of mothers return to their previous level of employment.
– Danish citizens expect and receive health care as a basic right.
– While no country in the world has yet achieved gender parity, Denmark and
other Nordic countries are coming close. That is in no small part because of
the strong presence of women in leadership positions.
– In Denmark’s most populated city, Copenhagen, bikes account for 50 % of
its residents’ trips to school or work. Half of commuting happens on a bike in
Copenhagen!
– In Denmark there is a real sense of collective responsibility and belonging.
More than 40% of all Danes do voluntary work in cultural and sports
associations. They also take pride in their involvement with the democratic
process. In the latest election, in September 2011, 87.7 % of the population
voted. (from The Huffington Post and www.unsdsn.org)
29

native language: ‘Du grønne glitrende
tre god-dag’ and ‘Dejlig er jorden’. I
also read a translation of the first hymn
so that all can understand our greeting
to the tree.
We then move outside to switch the
lights on, an exciting and magical
experience on a dark November night,
to remind us that the light of Christmas
will soon be here.

Christmas
Switching the lights on in
Newcastle
by Alfhild Wellborne
In Newcastle upon Tyne, Christmas
starts on the last Thursday in
November, which marks the
presentation of the city’s Christmas tree
from Bergen and the ceremonial switch
on of Christmas Lights by both mayors.
This is a very long tradition, going back
at least 60 years, when it was given as a
thank you for Britain’s support in the
Second World War, in the same way
that Oslo sends one to London and
Haugesund sends one to Sunderland.
Here in Newcastle we very much
enjoy the celebration. We gather in the
Grand Entrance of the Civic Centre: the
City Chaplain together with the two
Mayors, other representatives from the
city, as well as Scandinavians from
around the district. We take part in a
short service, with readings, prayers and
carols, well supported by the Youth
Brass Band.

Greeting To The Tree
We greet you today, green glittering
treasure,
A welcome sight that gives us much
pleasure.
Your branches are decked with Christmas
light
And on the top is a star shining bright.
When the star is shining,
It is reminding us
Of our loving God.
The first Christmas in a far off land,
A great star was lit by God’s mighty hand,
This was to show us that Jesus was born
A saviour had come to a world forlorn.
When the star is shining,
It is reminding us
Of our loving God.
(translation Alfhild Wellborne)

We also have a group of Norwegian
singers who perform two carols in their

30

cookies) as well as a variety of special
breads –rugbrød (black bread) being a
favourite.
But most important are the
æbleskiver, even though they are not
only served at Christmas. For me, the
smell of æbleskiver being prepared
always brings to mind Christmas and
Christmas Party times. In years gone by
the cook or the mother would start
making æbleskiver at lunchtime on
Christmas Eve. These were then put in
the hay box to keep warm for the
evening’s card games, especially for the
children, when they were used as prizes
for games.
I also remember in the late 50s or
early 60s the family making a special
point of stopping off at ‘Æbleskivehuset’ near Lillebæltsbroen, on the way
back from holiday visiting family, and
sampling them as a special treat.
They used to be made with small pieces
of apple inside, but these days we tend
to eat stewed apples at the side, or we
open them up and put apple or jam
inside and dip them in sugar.

Christmas food and drink
Denmark
Most Danes will attend one or more
Christmas lunches in December.
Christmas lunches are a traditional way
to extend Christmas celebrations
beyond the close family, to friends and
colleagues, and to get Danes in the
festive mood nice and early! Menus
might include traditional foods such as
smoked salmon, herring or liverpâté
with bacon and mushrooms. Wash it all
down with a Christmas beer, a
celebratory glass of wine or, if you're
really brave, a shot of Christmas snaps.
The traditional Danish Christmas
meal is roast pork, boiled potatoes, red
cabbage and gravy, although in recent
times roast duck and goose have
become popular. For dessert, the classic
dish is ris à l’amande: cold rice pudding
with whipped cream, vanilla, almonds
and hot cherry sauce, or risengrød (hot
rice pudding). A peeled almond is
hidden in the dessert bowl and the lucky
finder of the almond gets a present.
(from www.visitdenmark.co.uk)
Christmas baking –
Karen Christmas writes:
There is evidence that, since the Middle
Ages, every caller or guest to the house
is offered something from the
Christmas baking. If not, the saying
goes that they carry away the
‘Christmas Spirit’ from the home they
have visited. The tradition of Christmas
baking continues and we still make
klejner (deep fried ‘twists’), jødekager
(Jewish cakes), brunkager (spicy brown

like a small tennis ball) and are a
common delicacy all over Denmark
over the Christmas period. They're a bit
crispy on the outside, soft and doughy
on the inside. Being a Dane, perhaps I
am biased, but they are really delicious
(and thankfully therefore available all
year round!). Why not try making them
at home, it's fun to do and also easy. I
would recommend investing in an
æbleskiver pan but of course you can
also make them without.
 2 apples, peeled and chopped into
1/2” pieces (optional)
 2 tbsp butter (and butter to grease
æbleskiver pan)
 2 tsp cinnamon
 2 eggs
 1 tbsp sugar
 2 cups flour
 1 tsp baking powder
 1 1/2 cups buttermilk

(about 1 tsp). Place an apple chunk on
the batter, then spoon enough additional
batter over apple to cover and fill well
to the top. Allow to cook until the edges
of each ‘pancake’ begins to brown and
pull away from the sides of the wells.
Lightly run a knife or (in true Danish
traditional fashion) a knitting needle
around the edge of each ball to loosen,
and then flip over to cook through (for
approximately 2 minutes).
Remove the æbleskiver to a plate,
sprinkle with powdered sugar and a side
of raspberry jam to serve.
Enjoy! Værsgo!

Place the æbleskiver pan on a hot plate
and bring up the heat to the point where
butter sizzles on the surface. If making
with apple pieces, place these in a
separate pan, lightly sauté them in the
butter until softened but still firm.
Sprinkle with the cinnamon.
Separate the eggs and beat the whites
until they stiffen. Whisk the yolks and
sugar together until creamy. Sift
together the flour and baking powder
and gradually stir flour and buttermilk,
alternating with each 1/2-cup addition,
into egg mixture. Gently fold the beaten
egg whites into batter.
Reduce the heat under the æbleskiver
pan to medium. Place a drop of butter
into each well to grease and coat the
surface of wells entirely. Spoon batter
into each well filling to about half-way

Finland
Many Finnish Christmas dishes have
come from other countries, with most
originating from other Nordic countries.
However, there are some typical
Finnish delicacies, from appetiser to
dessert, that you are likely to find on a
Finnish Christmas table.
Rosolli is a cold salad typical of the
North. Fresh vegetables were once
unavailable in winter, but root
vegetables stored in cellars produced a
tasty, colourful salad. Rosolli often
includes herring and sometimes finely
32

diced meat. Apples and salted or
pickled cucumbers provide the salad
with a delicious sweet-and-sour taste.
Roe, the Finnish caviar, is an
undeniably Finnish delicacy on the
traditional Christmas table. The custom
of serving it with sour cream is the
result of eastern influence. It tastes best
with finely chopped onion and thin
slices of rye bread.
One of the miracles of Christmas
takes place when the starch in the
potatoes turns to sugar and sweetens an
unassuming potato casserole into
heavenly fare that simply vanishes
along with the ham.
A very old and traditional dish is
Christmas porridge baked crispy
brown in the oven. It is served with
mixed fruit or raisin soup, but there are
those who may consider milk and
cinnamon-laced sugar better
accessories. And if you find an almond
in the porridge, your wishes will come
true in the new year.

Iceland
In Iceland the Christmas Season has
traditionally been centred around food.
It is a time when people eat a lot of
good food and meat has traditionally
been a mainstay of people's diets during
this season. Some common Christmas
dishes include Rock Ptarmigan,
Smoked Rack of Pork, Leg of Lamb, or
Turkey in recent years, but there can be
no exhaustive list as the possibilities are
endless, and people's tastes differ.
Many people also bake cookies for
Christmas, and make the so-called leaf
bread. It is still common in many
households to bake numerous types of
cookies and for many it is important
that the cookies are homemade rather
than storebought even though a great
variety are available at the shops.

The tradition of leaf bread stems from
the time when it was difficult to obtain
the raw materials needed to make the
bread, especially during the time of
trade monopoly. Therefore, bread and
other grain products were only eaten at
holiday times. Leaf bread is a wafer
thin piece of bread baked at Christmas
in order to make it possible for
everyone to have a bite, as it says in the
traditional poem:

These are just some samples of Finnish
Christmas foods, but normally the Finns
eat at least ten different dishes and
drink some schnapps, beer and good
wines.
(text from the Finnish Embassy)

33

At Christmas children should be given a
bite of bread
Candlelight and red clothing so that
they can get out of bed

particularly among people on the West
Coast.
Lutefisk: Stockfish that has been lying
in water and lye (a way to preserve fish
in the old days), then cooked in the
oven. Typical accompaniments are
potatoes, bacon, mushy peas and
mustard. Although the wobbly fish is
traditionally the centre of Christmas
time feasts, the season is getting longer
as lutefisk enjoys greater popularity.

In the olden days the last few weeks
before Christmas were called the
‘Christmas Fast‘ due to the Catholic
custom of fasting at this time of year,
and abstaining from meat. This term
was used for centuries, in spite of the
fact that no actual fasting took place.
Today this term hardly applies as
Advent is generally characterised by
more eating than other times of year. It
is, however, interesting to see that one
custom related to the Catholic fast is
still going strong, and this is the habit of
eating skate on St Thorlákur's Day
(December 23rd).

Kalkun: Turkey is also eaten by some
for Christmas in Norway, as in so many
other countries. With or without
stuffing. Usually served with Brussels
sprouts, cauliflower, apples, grapes or
prunes, or even Waldorf salad; and Port
wine sauce.

(text from the National Museum of Iceland,
edited by the Icelandic Embassy, London)

Torsk: There is also a long tradition for
eating fresh cod on Christmas Eve,
particularly along the coast in Southern
Norway. The fish is simply boiled in
salted water, and served with boiled
potatoes, root vegetables and red wine
sauce.

Norway
Ribbe: Roasted pork belly, usually
served with sauerkraut and boiled
potatoes, Christmas sausages, meat
balls and gravy. A clear favourite, eaten
by six out of ten households, mainly in
Central and Eastern Norway.

Juleskinke: Not necessarily eaten on
Christmas Eve itself, but a Christmas
ham is likely to feature at one stage or
another on the table during the
Christmas season. Can be eaten cold, or
roasted in the oven.

Pinnekjøtt: Salted and dried, sometimes
smoked, lamb ribs. These were
traditionally steamed over birch
branches – hence the name
(pinne=stick, kjøtt=meat). Served with
sausages, boiled potatoes and mashed
swede. Norwegians' second most
popular choice on Christmas Eve,

Svinestek: Some Norwegians also like
to eat roast pork in the festive season.
Usually served with red cabbage, boiled
potatoes and gravy. Additional
vegetables can include broccoli and
carrots.

34

Julemarsipan: Marzipan is a popular
Christmas treat in Norway. Chocolatecoated marzipan is a favourite, but you
can also buy coloured marzipan to
make your own marzipan shapes at
home.
(from the Norwegian Embassy)

On the side
Julepølse: The Christmas sausage is a
pork sausage, sometimes made with
cloves, mustard seeds, ginger and/or
nutmeg, often served as an
accompaniment with ribbe.
Medisterkaker: Fried minced pork meat
and flour patties. Another popular
accompaniment for ribbe. The leftovers
are often eaten the following day(s).

Sweden

Kålrotstappe: Mashed swede, usually
served with pinnekjøtt.
Something sweet
Småkaker: Tradition dictates that seven
different kinds of Christmas biscuits
should feature on the table at Christmas,
and that all should be home-baked,
although today’s busy families often
make do with the ready-made variety.
The pepperkake (gingerbread-man) is
arguably the most popular of them.
Multekrem: Dessert made of
cloudberries and whipped cream.
Christmas, and the run up to it, is all
about one thing: the famous Swedish
smörgåsbord that is called julbord
(pronounced – roughly – ‘yuleboard’).
This is where you get practically 101
dishes elbowing for space on a table, or
a series of tables. And, as in Swedish
society, there is a proper order involved
in how you negotiate your way through
the meal. There should be five courses:
start with the pickled herring, move on
to the cold meats, ham, meatballs, patés
and reindeer sausage, then the hot
dishes including Janssons frestelse

Kransekake: A popular almond ring
cake that shows up for all big occasions
in Norway – including Christmas. The
cake consists of 18 wreaths of
decreasing size stacked on top of each
other to form a conical pyramid. It is
usually decorated with miniature
Norwegian flags.
Riskrem: Rice porridge mixed with
whipped cream and served with red
sauce (berries).

35

many varieties – red, brown and green:
rödkål, brunkål, and (a speciality of the
province Halland, on the west coast):

(potato, onion and anchovies), hot meat
stews and various cabbages, then
cheeses and sweets. There should be a
fresh plate each time. There should be
lashings of schnapps and beer. And
there should be a full belly at the end!
Julbord is generally enjoyed with the
family at lunchtime on Christmas Eve,
with friends on the weekends in
December, and with work-mates for the
client/office Christmas parties. In the
evening of Christmas Eve, it is time for
the traditional lutfisk (ling fish). It is a
simple speciality, stemming from hard
times when fish was preserved by
drying and then soaked before cooking.
The fish is served with potatoes and
mustard sauce.

Grönkål (also known as långkål: ‘long
cabbage/kale’):
2 heads of kale
400 ml stock (e.g. ham)
2 tbsp butter or marg
4 tbsp cream
pepper
(salt? depending on stock)
smidgen of sugar
Bring stock to the boil and add the
chopped kale. Simmer without a lid
until almost all the liquid has gone
(usually about 20 minutes).
Gently brown the butter in a fryingpan, add the kale and fry, stirring. Add
cream gradually, season and serve.
Answer for Where am I?
(from page 29):
Malmö, Sweden’s third largest town,
c 280,000 inhabitants.
1. Carl Milles’sculpture from 1949
is in Slottsparken.
2. Bothwell was held at Malmöhus
Castle 1568-73, on the orders of
Frederik II of Denmark. Malmö is in
Skåne which was Danish until 1658.
3. Malm once could have the meaning
‘gravel’ or ‘sand’, and ö is a reduction
of an older hög = mound, small hill.
4. Ingmar Bergman worked at Malmö
stadsteater 1952-58.
5. ‘Turning Torso’, built in 2005, is the
tallest skyscraper in Scandinavia
(190 m).

For pudding, traditional hot rice
‘porridge’ is served with milk,
cinnamon and sugar, or a red-berry
sauce. If you find the hidden almond,
you must produce a (preferably witty
and topical) rhyme – to get a prize or to
get all your wishes granted you would
have to spend Christmas in Denmark or
Finland!
(text adapted from
www.visitsweden.co.uk)
Brita Green writes:
Swedish Christmas cabbage comes in
36

Anna Sophie’s Kitchen
Winter drinks

Boil spices and fruit in wine (2–3
cups) or fruit juice and any optional
additions, such as dried fruit and
nuts, to a base which ultimately will
amount to about a third of what you
will be using. The longer it simmers,
the more flavour and concentrated
the base. You may well leave it for
one hour, stirring occasionally.
Season with brown sugar or honey
and add some water if it gets dry.
Pour in the rest of the liquid, warm
up again and strain. If you use wine
and spirits and want to keep the
alcohol, it must not be heated above
70°C at this stage. Serve with raisins
and almonds in each glass.

Beat eggs, sugar
and freshly grated
nutmeg. Stir
vigorously until the
mixture is almost white and the volume
has increased three -four times. Heat the
cream to just below boiling point, add
the rum and in a thin stream, pour into
the egg mixture while stirring gently.
Grate a little nutmeg on top and serve in
heated glasses.

Heat the
wine, tea,
lemon
and
orange
juices. Do Photo: Anna Sophie Strandli
not allow to boil. Pour the mix into a
heat-proof bowl. Place as much of the
sugar as possible in a large ladle and
saturate the sugar in the ladle with rum.
Ignite the rum and sugar and pour into
the bowl while still aflame. Extinguish
the flame and stir well. Pour the
remainder of the rum into the punch.

Champagne Cocktail
Place a sugar cube
(preferably Demerara) in a
Champagne flute. Add a
few drops of Angostura
bitters to saturate the
sugar and then a splash of
brandy. Decorate with a
twist of orange (or lemon) zest.
Carefully pour in the
Champagne or
sparkling wine and watch
the sugar cube dissolve in a fountain
of bubbles.
’Not too dry, not too sweet, with just
the right amount of bubbles and buzz.’

Travel awards
2012 expedition to Øksfjord, Finnmark
The 42-square-kilometre glacier Øksfjordjøkelen is the ninth largest glacier in
mainland Norway. Several of our grant recipients took part in the 2012 British Schools
Exploring Society’s expedition to the glacier. Here are extracts from some of their
reports, covering various aspects of the expedition. Wikipedia helps us to understand
some technical terms used.

Photo: Anne Stefaniak

Eerie beauty
Anne Stefaniak: When you think about
the Arctic you imagine cold, desolate,
white open space, but within that you
begin to see all the colours of the ice:
the blue of the sky amplified by the
white pristine snow and glacial ice
lying below. The sounds of the Arctic,
so quiet and peaceful, yet you hear the
birds and rumble of the glacier opening
with new crevasses.
Richard Bailey: It was a three and a half
hour hike, and the majority of this time
was spent in a white-out. As we were
roped up for safety and had no one to
talk to for the entirety, this was an eerie
experience.
We travelled all the way to the south,
stopping on various rocky outcrops on

the way to soak up the awe-inspiring
views, which were made even better as
all the valleys below us were filled with
cloud, leaving only the higher peaks
and ridges visible to us.
Once we were all rested to an
extent, we set off on a five kilometre
trek to that evening’s bivi spot, an
amazing ledge two metres away from a
400 foot sheer drop. The view from
here was unbelievable. We could see
down the valley to where our base camp
and mountain camp were, we could see
down the extensive fjords and we could
also see over the entire ice cap – all
while watching an incredible sunset,
and all from inside our sleeping bags.

39

both on and off the ice. We first learnt
how to use harnesses, and the different
types of knots needed to rope up. On
the ice we learnt how to use crampons
and ice axes, including self arrests (to
prevent a fall) and making anchors
(which can be used in crevasse rescue).
Week 3. The science phase. In the
valley of Fjorddalen we saw a variety of
features, all of which showed evidence
of a previous glaciation. During a 24
hour science collection period we
investigated how changes on the glacier
affected the glacial stream running
down the valley into the fjord. This
involved taking meteorological
observations and river discharge
readings every hour, on the hour.

Photo: Anne Stefaniak

Activities
Anne Stefaniak: At the beginning of the
expedition the weather was against us,
constant heavy rain and mosquitos
eating us alive! It was going to be
tough, and the idea of spending six
weeks out there was a challenging one.
Once base camp was set up, we moved
further up the mountain. The view of
the ice was spectacular and we couldn’t
wait to get up there and explore.
Catherine Voysey: Week 1. We learnt
how to live in an expedition
environment, acquiring many new skills
which we would need throughout the
three weeks, and bonding as a group.
For example we learnt how to use the
stoves, put up the different tents, how to
cook the perfect dehydrated ration pack,
and how to use the radio, which we
used every day to report back to base
camp and the Chief Leader.
Week 2. Mountain training. This
involved learning a variety of new skills

Food
William Sanderson: Our main food
would be dehydrated meals, to which
you added boiling water. At first they
weren’t hugely tasty, but as the
expedition progressed, we learnt to
appreciate them. The curries in
particular were very nice! The
vegetarian meals weren’t quite as good,
and some wag named them ‘Shepless
Pie’ and ‘Chilli Non Carne’!
Misfit streams, nunataks and
Brocken spectres
Catherine Voysey: We saw a variety of
glacial features, a U-shaped valley, a
misfit stream, erratics and striations.
Wikipedia: A misfit stream is a stream
or river that is either too large or too
small to have eroded the valley in which
it flows.

40

William Sanderson: While on the ice
field, we explored as much of it as
possible. Our first trek on the ice was
to a nunatak.
Richard Bailey: From a central base on
a nunatak, where we stayed for several
nights, we explored some ice caves.

Wikipedia: The phenomenon is named
after the Brocken, a peak in the Harz
Mountains in Germany, and was first
described in 1780. The ‘spectre’
appears when the sun shines from
behind the observer through the mist.
The apparent magnification is an
optical illusion that occurs when the
observer judges his or her shadow on
relatively nearby clouds to be at the
same distance as faraway land objects
seen through gaps in the clouds, or
when there are no reference points at
all by which to judge its size.

Wikipedia: A nunatak is an exposed,
often rocky element of a ridge,
mountain or peak not covered with ice
or snow within (or at the edge of) an ice
field or glacier. Nunataks present
readily identifiable landmark reference
points in glaciers or ice caps and are
often named. Nunataks are generally
angular and jagged and contrast
strongly with the softer contours of the
glacially eroded land after a glacier
retreats. The word is of Greenlandic
origin and has been used in English
since the 1870s.

CoScan travel grants
are given out once a year, in the spring,
to young people aged between 15 and
25, who are planning a journey of an
educational nature to Scandinavia. As
always, the deadline for applications is
31 March.

Richard Bailey: For our last night on
the glacier a small group of us set off to
a ridge above the cloud line, which
meant that the conditions were just right
for a Brocken spectre to appear. This
is an enormous shadow of ourselves
projected onto the clouds, and encircled
by a rainbow.